....Sending the yeast down a curb drain may be a problem. Any newer city has separate storm and sanitary sewers. Street storm drains go to the nearest river, and a yeast slurry would be an un-natural organic load, reduce water quality, and cause areal stench if not flushed by a decent rainstorm.

A quart of yeast slurry in a river will cause "an un-natural organic load, reduce water quality"?

Really?

Kind of like spitting in the ocean.

Logged

Sweet Caroline where the Sun rises over the deep blue sea and sets somewhere beyond Tennessee

Sometimes mine goes onto the compost heap, sometimes onto the "lawn", sometimes into the septic tank depending on which fermentor I'm using. If it's buckets it goes in the septic tank, carboys onto the lawn and the conical gets drained into buckets for the compost pile

....Sending the yeast down a curb drain may be a problem. Any newer city has separate storm and sanitary sewers. Street storm drains go to the nearest river, and a yeast slurry would be an un-natural organic load, reduce water quality, and cause areal stench if not flushed by a decent rainstorm.

A quart of yeast slurry in a river will cause "an un-natural organic load, reduce water quality"?

Really?

Kind of like spitting in the ocean.

gotta say this argument doesn't hold water. it's not just 1 qt of yeast. it's 1 quart of yeast * 500K homebrewers in america (okay not all of them are dumping yeast in the storm drain, and not all of them that do live in the same place, but you get the idea)

the spitting in the ocean argument is exactly the same that leads to dumping radioactive waste in the ocean because hey what's a few thousand barrells of toxic gunk in the whole ocean?

Not saying there is an issue with disposing of the yeast cake in the storm drain but...

I get what you're saying, but there is a huge difference between dumping something that is food and will degrade quickly, and something that is toxic and has a half-life of 24,000 years. Huge difference. And I know you know that.

Yes, the "spitting in the ocean" argument is a bad one in a lot of instances. I don't think it is in this one, considering the volume of yeast on a homebrew scale, number of homebrewers who dump yeast outside, how frequently they dump yeast, geographic distances between them, and the fact that it will readily be healthy food for other organisms. Crank up any of those factors and it might be bad.

I get what you're saying, but there is a huge difference between dumping something that is food and will degrade quickly, and something that is toxic and has a half-life of 24,000 years. Huge difference. And I know you know that.

Yes, the "spitting in the ocean" argument is a bad one in a lot of instances. I don't think it is in this one, considering the volume of yeast on a homebrew scale, number of homebrewers who dump yeast outside, how frequently they dump yeast, geographic distances between them, and the fact that it will readily be healthy food for other organisms. Crank up any of those factors and it might be bad.

If I have told myself once, I have told myself a million times. 'Don't be hyperbolic'

point taken and fully conceded. I dump my yeast in the compost or on the lawn and it I am sure washed into local water ways and/or sewers. but mostly eaten by other life forms

We keep fogetting that besides coming in neat little packages, yeast exist in nature. There is probably more yeast washed down a storm drain naturally in a day during a rain storm than all of us could dump in a year.

Logged

Sweet Caroline where the Sun rises over the deep blue sea and sets somewhere beyond Tennessee